Aside from announcing a production start date and official synopsis back in January, Marvel hasn’t let much slip about its Black Panther film directed by Creed‘s Ryan Coogler. Everything changed Friday morning when the official Marvel Studios Twitter account published the film’s first poster, featuring T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) donning the titular hero’s garb while sitting atop the Wakandan throne. And if that wasn’t enough, the poster revelation noted Black Panther‘s first teaser trailer would drop during Game 4 of the NBA Finals. “Witness the legend,” the tweet concluded.
Witness it indeed, for the new teaser trailer for Black Panther has finally arrived, and with a total run time at just under two minutes, it easily outshines Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s big-from-the-beginning marketing campaign. After an interrogation scene featuring Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and Ulysses Klaue/”Klaw” (Andy Serkis), in which the one-armed villain reveals Wakanda to be the “El Dorado” explorers dreamed of finding, Run The Jewels’ “Legend Has It” kicks in right when a bunch of armed mercenary types run into the Black Panther himself.
What follows is a series of beautiful images of Wakanda’s ruling and lower classes, traditions, and advanced technologies. We even hear King T’Chaka (John Kani) from Captain America: Civil War, who narrates the rest of the trailer’s dazzling scenes and sequences. “The world is changing. Soon there will only be the conquered and the conquerors,” he tells his son, T’Challa. “You are a good man with a good heart, and it’s hard for a good man to be a king.” And judging by what appears to be Klaw’s violent ends from outside Wakanda, and Erik Killmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) torrential internal efforts, the new king will be tested.
